Dictionary of Music - Birding America

shofar 379board), seven string quartets, and many other instrumentalchamber works and songs.sharp 1 An accidental that raises the pitch of anote by one half tone, indicated by the sign #. 2 Aterm to describe tones, sung or played, that areslightly higher than the correct pitch, and instrumentstuned slightly higher than normal pitch.shawm (shôm). A wind instrument played with adouble reed that is thought to be about two thousandyears old. It is the forerunner of the modern oboe.Varieties of shawm are still found in various countriesof the Near East and Africa. Like the oboe, theshawm has a conical bore (cone-shaped inside), flaringinto a bell. The reed is mounted on a small metaltube fitted into the top of the instrument. African andNear Eastern shawms also have a disc below thereed, which supports the player’s lips; Europeanshawms have a small piece of wood that partly coversthe reed and supports the lips. There are sevenfinger holes, placed in the upper part of the instrument.The shawm has a bright, loud sound, owing tothe reed and the way it is mounted, which permit agreat deal of vibration.sheng (sheng) Chinese. A mouth organ ofChina that dates back three thousand years or moreand is still used today. It consists of a woodenwind chest in the shape of a bowl, into which areinserted a series of seventeen bamboo pipes of differentlengths, arranged in a circle. Each pipe has abrass reed, which is fixed over a small slit near thelower end of the pipe. Above the reed is a smallvent (air hole) and, still higher in the pipe, a fingerhole, which must be covered if the pipe is tosound. The player blows into the mouthpiece,which is inserted in the side of the bowl, and at thesame time covers the finger holes of those pipesthat are to sound. The player’s breath causes theappropriate reeds to vibrate, which in turn makesthe air inside their pipes vibrate, so that theysound. The sounds produced are either singlereedy tones or dense clusters.fig. 218 p/u from p. 396fig. 217 p/u from p. 396The Japanese use a virtually identical instrumentcalled sho (shō).The shawm came to Europe about the twelfthcentury, probably from the Arab countries of theNear East. It was used mainly outdoors, in bands,and was made in a variety of sizes, ranging fromsoprano to bass (the accompanying illustrationshows a tenor shawm). In Germany small ones werecalled Schalmei and large ones Pommer (in France,bombarde). In the seventeenth century the shawmwas largely replaced by the OBOE, but it survived asa folk instrument in Spain.shift In playing stringed instruments or the trombone,a change of position. See POSITION, defs. 1, 2.sho (shō).See under SHENG.shofar (shô fär′, shō′fər) Hebrew. One of theoldest instruments that is still in use. A wind instrumentmade from a ram’s horn, the shofar has beenfig. 219 p/ufrom p. 396